“This is almost perfect,” the same nasally voice from earlier crowed excited.
As I opened my eyes, I was forced to squint at the bright light overhead, confusion filling me as I realized I wasn’t in my little plastic cube anymore but instead lying on a cold metal table with my wrists and ankles strapped down.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my head still swimming as I turned to find Andrey standing right off to the side filling a syringe with some type of clear liquid.
Just past him I caught sight of two more metal tables. On one was Luscinia and her eyes were closed, her blonde hair spilling over the side, and on the other was a taller woman I didn’t recognize.
She had dark hair that was pulled out of her face leaving her brown eyes wide with fear as she rolled her head back and forth, humming under her breath.
I didn’t know the woman, but it was easy enough to place the voice that had been singing earlier.
“You’re…” I began, swallowing down the sudden wash of nausea I was feeling. “You’re supposed to leave me alone.”
While Andrey hadn’t seemed to have heard me the first time, he definitely did the second.
Blue eyes shifted away from the syringe to me as he offered me a smile that wasn’t altogether sane.
“He’ll forgive me. Vladdy always forgives me. I gave him the keys to the kingdom and all he has to do is fund my dreams.” I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or to himself, but he started to approach me with the full syringe in hand. “You’re already so close to your heat and my what a heat it will be. I’ve never had an omega’s genetic material during her first heat before—the last really good one was so long ago and even she’d gone through it a few times. You are perfect for what I need, my dear.”
The man giggled and it sent shivers down my spine.
“But I’m not in heat though,” I told him, hoping it would buy me a few extra minutes.
Andrey grinned down at me, giving the syringe a squeeze to get any air bubbles out. At some point while I was unconscious he must have run an IV line in my hand because he was reaching for it as I tried to pull my way out of the straps. “This will fix that easily. You should feel honored, finding heat stimulants is no small feat now that they’ve been banned in almost every first world country, my dear. Very, very expensive.”
I gawked at him as he attached the syringe to the IV port and began to depress the plunger. “Apologies in advance as I’m afraid this will hurt a bit.”
As soon as the liquid flowed through the IV and into my hand it was like he’d injected me with fire.
A guttural scream was pulled from my throat as every inch of me was set ablaze followed by the most vicious cramping I’d ever felt.
Need alpha, need alpha, need alpha, my inner omega whimpered piteously as she seemed to reach out and grip my mind in between burning claws.
I was almost mindless with it all, only picking up on bits and pieces of what Andrey was saying as he continued to talk about what he was doing.
“You see, I have been working for over forty years trying to find a way to turn the much less desired betas into an omega with very little success. It’s never been done before, but I’ve gotten quite close.”
A moan slipped free from my mouth, drowning out his words for a moment as my hips bucked upwards and I squeezed my thighs together for any sort of friction to ease the molten ache in between my legs.
“Thirty-eight years ago I met a young woman who was almost as fresh as you.” Andrey sighed almost nostalgically. “Her genetic material was some of the purest, I just didn’t have the right beta specimen to work with—the girl was a late bloomer and all injecting her with omega genetic material did was awaken her already latent designation. Not quite what I was going for, I’ll admit. Then my facility was trashed by those damned Irish after that and I lost her forever.”
Andrey hummed under his breath for a moment as his eyes flicked over to the screens monitoring my heartbeat as they started to beep wildly. He then pulled a different syringe off of the little metal tray next to him along with a long rubber tube.
“But that girl over there is perfect,” he whispered in my ear, nodding to Luscinia. “A beta through and through, even if her father wishes she was anything but different.”
“What are you going to do to her?” I asked through gritted teeth, crying out as another wash of fire flowed through me.
I wanted my alphas more than anything else in the world right now, but they were nowhere to be seen. They didn’t even know where I was. A pitiful sob leaked from between my lips, making the man’s grin widen even more.
“It’s a bit of a roulette this time, I’m afraid. But I can assure it’s all in the name of scientific exploration.”
A stinging prick in my arm slipped in between heat cramps and I glanced down to find him taking some of my blood.
“Over on the other side you’ll see my little bird. She’s been with me for a long time—an alpha of course. I stimulated her hormones with some of your pheromone, bringing on a rut so that I could get the most potent of her genetic material. Only the best for my beta.” Andrey reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of blood, waving it in my face.
I watched in horror as he started to mix my blood with the alpha woman’s realizing that I had no idea what was about to happen to Luscinia.
At least with Vladimir Volkov, I knew his motives had something to do with power and money—motives that I could understand. But Andrey Volkov? The man was insane, pure and simple.
“Why are you doing this?”
Andrey’s head shot up as if he’d forgotten I was still here. “Why? Why not? Science is all about pushing the envelope my dear, ethics be damned!”
He wagged the new, bigger vial in my face before placing it in some kind of machine that began to spin.
I’d never regretted being a photography major more than I did now as I watched with confusion as the machine beeped and he pulled the vial out again, grinning at the layer of yellowy material that had collected towards the top.
“I’d explain how all of this works, but I’m afraid it may be too much for you, my dear. Time for you to take another nap.”
He reached for the IV line and twisted a knob, sending the cool fluids from the hanging bag and something else down the line and into my hand.
My eyes started to grow heavy as the force of my heat was dulled slightly by the medicine.
Andrey turned away from me and back to Luscinia. The last thing I heard as my eyes started to drift shut was a garbled scream—the first noise I’d ever heard from the woman—and then everything went black.
